1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a location floor number display method in a navigation apparatus and, more particularly, to a location floor number display method which visually displays the floor number of a floor, in a building, on which a target institution is located and displays detailed information of the target institution.
2. Description of the Related Art
A navigation apparatus which provides travel guidance for a vehicle to enable a driver to easily reach a target location detects the position of the vehicle, reads map data of the area surrounding the vehicle position from a CD-ROM, draws a map image on a display screen, and draws a vehicle position mark at a predetermined position on the map image in overlapping fashion. In accordance with a change in present position by movement of the vehicle, the vehicle position mark on the screen is moved, or the vehicle position mark is fixed at a predetermined position such as the center of the screen and the map is scrolled, so that the map information of the area surrounding the vehicle position can be always understood at a glance.
The navigation apparatus has a route guiding function which searches a guide route from a starting location to a target location, displays the guide route on a map, and performs intersection guidance (display of an enlarged view of an intersection and a display of the direction to proceed).
A recent navigation apparatus is designed such that various pinpoint searching operations can be performed by using Yellow Page data or detailed town map information. The detailed town map information is detailed map information including the positions and the planar shapes of buildings, roads, and the like such that, with respect to a town, the shapes of buildings, the widths of roads, the positions of signals, the directions of one-way roads, blind alleys, and the like can be realistically depicted.
Regarding Yellow Page data, it is known to provide (1) a telephone number database in which a telephone number is input to search for the institution (various types of stores, sales offices, banks, or the like) of the telephone number and to display the map surrounding the institution; (2) an institution database which includes the names, jobs, positions (longitude/latitude), and the like of institutions (stores, sales offices, banks, and the like) in units of institutions; (3) a building database; and the like. The building database includes detailed information (names, telephone numbers, addresses) of longitude/latitude positions, names, building users (companies, offices, and the like) in units of buildings.
Regarding pinpoint searching, for example, Yellow Page telephone number searching, pinpoint surrounding information searching, Japanese syllabary searching, and the like are used.
The Yellow Page telephone number searching is a method of inputting the telephone number of a target institution to search for the map surrounding the institution and to display the map. A user operates the menu of a remote controller to request telephone number searching. When the user inputs a telephone number of a desired institution (e.g., a department store), a navigation control device calculates the department store name corresponding to the input telephone number with reference to a telephone-number-classified database, calculates position data of the department store with reference to the institution database, and reads the map surrounding the department store on the basis of the position data to display the map on the display screen.
The pinpoint surrounding information searching is a method of searching for a target institution such as a drug store or a coffee shop within a radius of 1 km of a vehicle position or an arbitrary position from a 52-genre job classification to display the map surrounding the target institution. When a user operates the menu of a remote controller to request a map displayed by the surrounding information searching, the navigation control device displays a job-classified list. When the user selects a predetermined job name (e.g., department store), the navigation control device searches department stores within a radius of 1 km of the vehicle position with reference to the institution database to display a department store name list. When the user selects a desired department store name, the navigation control device displays the position of the department store selected with reference to the institution database on the map.
The Japanese syllabary searching is a method of searching the map surrounding an institution by inputting the institution name with Japanese syllables to display the map. When a user operates the menu of a remote controller to request map searching by inputting Japanese syllables, and the name of a desired institution (e.g., department store) is input with Japanese syllables, the navigation control device searches only a part of the name by partial coincidence searching to calculate the department store name with reference to the institution database. The navigation control device calculates the position data of the indicated department store with reference to the institution database, and reads the map surrounding the department store on the basis of the position data to display the map on the display screen.
On the basis of the detailed town map information, a detailed town map is displayed as shown in FIG. 14A, a target building is indicated by a cursor CSR, and"information" is selected from a setup menu. In this case, user names (company names or tenant names) of the building are listed in the order of Japanese syllabary as shown in FIG. 14B with reference to the building database, and a predetermined user is selected from the list. At this time, as shown in FIG. 14C, the name, address, telephone number of the user (company/tenant) are displayed (detailed information display). According to this detailed information display function, a location can be easily checked even if the target institution is in a building. Even in a complicated street lined with buildings, the user does not lose his/her way. More specifically, the building of the target institution can be recognized by the detailed information display function. For this reason, when the building is input as a target location, a guide route to the building is searched and displayed, and the user can reach the target location even in a complicated street lined with buildings without losing his/her way.
As described above, according to the conventional detailed information display function, a route to a building in which a target institution is located can be searched in order to be displayed. However, the floor number of a floor in the building on which the target institution is located cannot be known.